Cam Newton: "I Don't Feel Safe"

Earlier today, the Panthers beat the Cardinals at home and gained their much-needed second win of the season. Outside of the victory, though, what has drawn a considerable amount of attention are Cam Newton's comments post game.

As I've written about before in this blog and as has been commented on quite a bit by different sports media sources this season, Newton's been the victim of many big hits that have gone uncalled. Previously, Newton has always seemed to hold a stance of frustration yet humility when asked about these hits, expressing the unequal treatment of different players around the league by officials, but also understanding the risks he puts himself in by using his legs as a fundamental part of his game. However, today, Newton was again asked about hits he took during this week's game, and he let loose some of his frustration over missed calls by the officials. Click the link below to watch the press conference. Newton's commentary on officiating comes around the 5 minute mark.

It's one thing for Newton to comment on how the lack of calls makes the game less fun, especially when other quarterbacks are getting penalties in their favor on the same type of hits Cam takes. But for Newton to express his desire to meet with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, because, as he describes, "in games, I do not feel protected by the officials," shows how serious this issues has become to him. Newton, who suffered a concussion in week four against the Falcons, stated earlier this month how his injury forced him to reflect on how certain aspects of his game make him more vulnerable to big hits than most NFL quarterbacks are.

Although it's unfortunate that all this has been happening to Cam, it's beneficial for the health of football as a whole, because it increases awareness of head injuries and of the importance of protecting players. I'm looking forward to see if Newton really does meet with Goodell at the end of the season.

An (Unscientific) Analysis of Frontline's Concussion Data

A few days ago, I posted a link to Frontline's online NFL concussion application. If you haven't checked it out, I encourage you do to so. It allows you to sort by season, team, position, and individual player when looking at concussion data from the 2012-2015 seasons.

Click this link to visit the website: 

http://apps.frontline.org/concussion-watch/#positions_2015

I've been milling around the application data, and I noticed a few trends that I thought were interesting and strong enough to point out.

1st, it seems that defensive backs and receivers are the positions most likely to suffer concussions. Looking at the 2015 data, cornerbacks are especially susceptible, and the comparison between the corners and interior linemen (defensive tackles, offensive guards and centers) is pretty striking. Thinking about it, though, it makes a lot of sense-- although linemen may be experiencing more contact on a play-by-play basis, cornerbacks and receivers bring much more acceleration and momentum into hits. Defensive backs have a much larger space to work with than linemen do, and thus collisions will often be lined up from 10 or 15 yards away, resulting in harder hits. Additionally, again due to the large amount of space, collisions can come awkward and unexpected angles, leading to head injuries.

Graphic from 2015 Data

Another trend I noticed in the data was that quite a few players suffered multiple concussions in the course of one season. Of these 11 players, all except two of them missed more game time after their second concussion than they did after their first. I charted out the data below:

As you can see, players missed an average of 1.0 games recovering from their first concussion of the season, but missed an average of 2.7 while recovering from their second. Additionally, five of the 11 players suffered their second concussion during their first game back from their first concussion. I've highlighted these players on the chart. The two players who suffered concussions that were season-ending, Andrew Hawkins and Joe Haden, both suffered their second concussions during their first games back. 

A few obvious conclusions and lessons can be drawn from this small sample size of data. Primarily, long-term health concerns put aside, it makes no sense for a player to return to game play unless he is completely healthy. Obviously I can't speculate on how the these players, especially the ones who immediately suffered a second concussion, felt physically going into their games. I'm sure at least a few of them felt entirely normal. But clearly, there needs to be some better sort of gauge on whether a player is truly recovered before he is sent back to play. The NFL is notorious for its use of pain killers, which could be a factor in this situation.

Trump Spews Ignorance on Concussions

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gained news attention and public backlash in the last week for his comments on concussions and the NFL. Click on the image below to view the video from a political rally in Florida. 

After a woman passed out at the rally, Trump commented: "The woman was out cold and now she's coming back. We don't go by these new, and very much softer, NFL rules. Concussion? Oh, oh! Got a little ding on the head? No, no, you can't play for the rest of the season. Our people are tough."

Trump's comments were met with tremendous backlash by many current NFL players, such as Giants tight end Larry Donnell and cornerback Buster Skrine.

Lisa McHale, director of family relations at the Concussion Legacy Foundation and wife of the late NFL player Tom McHale, who was diagnosed with CTE postmortem, commented, "It’s not really surprising that a man who came out publicly believing that he knows more than our top generals about ISIS would think he knows more about concussions than the world-renowned researchers who are studying the issue.” Obviously, this is not a political blog, and traumatic brain injury is certainly a problem in society that should transcend any political divide or agenda. Nevertheless, I can't help thinking that Trump's comments are indicative of a larger trend of ignoring established facts and tradition in order to promote some farcical notion of toughness or know-how. 

One of the first steps in any nationwide problem is spreading awareness and giving people access to complete and reliable information. That's the goal of this blog, and that's the only way we can stop the archaic and barbaric notions of head injury that still seem to be held by Trump and other people.

Frontline Concussion Watch

For those who haven't seen it, the PBS series Frontline has an application on its website that tracks all disclosed NFL concussions each year, and makes it easy to sort concussion info by season, team, position, and individual player. I've posted the link below. The info collected by Frontline is only based on weekly NFL injury reports, and thus does not include concussions suffered in the preseason or, obviously, concussions that went unreported by teams (see my blog "Beating Around the Bush" for further commentary).

Click this link to visit the website: 

http://apps.frontline.org/concussion-watch/#positions_2015

The application has data from the 2012-2015 seasons. I'm hoping that the site will eventually track the data from the 2016 season, but I'm not sure if it normally collects week-by-week, or just posts everything at the end of the season. 

NFL Fines

Late last week, Pittsburgh Steelers star receiver Antonio Brown received a fine of $24,309 for twerking in the endzone after scoring against Kansas City in the Steelers' 43-14 victory over the Chiefs. Among other comments denouncing the fine, Brown said:

"I don't think excessive celebrating should cost more than hitting guys in the helmet -- $24,000 for a guy scoring touchdowns and having fun is more than a guy getting hit in the head, targeting with the helmet."

Of course, it's clear that twerking unexpectedly in front of a national audience is different than just "having fun," and I don't condone Brown's behavior. His point, however, is an important one. Part of mending the concussion crisis in football is not just placing in rules that disallow deliberate hits to the head of defenseless players, but also making sure that players are strongly incentivized to not break these rules.

Antonio Brown brings in a Touchdown against Kansas City

Last month, I posted about the penalized hit that Darian Stewart laid on the helmet of Panther's quarterback Cam Newton (who is currently out with a concussion suffered from a different hit). Stewart was fined only $18,231 for the hit, about 25% less than the fine given to Brown.

Obviously there's already a system of penalties, fines, and suspensions that the NFL uses to punish players who commit various violations of the game's rules. But if the NFL really wants to show that it is attempting to crack down on hits to the head in the game, these deterrents must be significantly larger than those of other penalties. If Stewart, for example, was forced to sit out for a couple games, rather than pay fine that amounts to a drop in the bucket of a multi-million dollar NFL contract. Unless players are truly incentivized not to break the rules surrounding head injuries, there is no effective way of helping prevent these hits from occurring.